Lest Ye Be Judged
by Darthishtar
Summary: Anakin Skywalker chose to live at Endor and his son hopes to reunite the family. His daughter hopes to bring the father she never knew to justice. An AU of fairly epic proportions.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: The original version of this was posted on between 2006 and 2008. I've been meaning to post it here and thought, as it's Father's Day, today would be an appropriate time to start. I will make a few alterations from the 2008 version, but hope you enjoy this.

PART 1

IN MEMORY

He had heard once that people yearned to travel among the stars because they were the only things in the Galaxy that did not judge.

Sentients failed themselves and each other. They had their grudges, their foibles, and their petty wars, but the stars never took part in such biases. They did not welcome the unworthy any more than the worthy and when they went supernova, there was no sense of justice in their ability to destroy.

The man whose name demanded that he walk the sky had crossed the stars because they offered uncompromising possibility. They bore silent witness to the pain of a nine-year-old boy who had trusted in those possibilities enough to put his faith in an unknown Jedi Master. They had safeguarded his first battle and his return to the place that he would soon call home at the Jedi Temple.

He had crossed the stars many times on the way to manhood. It was the one place where he finally felt that he was on common ground with his Master. He couldn't be told that his ability to fly was an unnecessary distraction. Obi-Wan couldn't argue that repairs were a demonstration of his misunderstanding of the Force. There were no rules to be broken in space travel and he rarely felt utterly stupid at the controls of a ship.

Ten years after the boy had left his home to find his correct place in life, the stars guarded him across a gulf of misunderstanding and fear to the place where his angel would find her soulmate. They had crossed many lightyears and many events to come to a place where they could find mutual love, so it was among the stars that he had quietly asked her to become a permanent part of his life. By the time they'd seen the stars in the night sky at Naboo once more, she had become his beloved and loving wife.

The stars had never betrayed him during the Clone Wars, except to separate him from her. He had, at last, attained the power that he had craved for too long, he gazed through a lens darkly at the stars and found they held only emptiness for him.

This was punishment enough, to be forsaken by his guardians, but he was condemned by his actions to wander the stars, always seeking alliance and fulfillment and only finding more betrayal.

It should have been no surprise, since every other thing that he had dared to love had turned against him.

The only exception was the son that had never known him as anything but a murderous enemy. He could not tell what had caused this change in pattern. Perhaps it was that he had not allowed himself to love the young man whom he chased for the better part of three years. He had desired his allegiance, pleaded for his understanding, but he had never yearned for his son's love in the way that he had yearned for his love of an angel to be requited.

The other possibility, one that he hadn't believed possible, was that the love that came from forgiveness of an enemy was something so powerful that he had not been able to understand or return it.

That, however, would change soon enough. It was one of the few explanations he could offer for the fact that the Force had been cruel enough to let him live.

"The Empire is dead. Long live the Alliance."

At the inception of the New Order, one audacious holoshill had sent a message of despair across the comm channels to those who would listen: _"The Republic is dead, but I cannot bring myself to declare, 'Long live the Empire.'"_

The Republic had lasted more than a thousand years and no one had been permitted to mourn its passing under the threat of their new tyrant. The Empire had stood a mere twenty-four years, but it was questionable if there was anyone who could still honestly find a reason to mourn.

The triumph was undeniable, but the victory was inexpressible because the word peace was spoken tonight for the first time as a reality rather than a delusion of grandeur.

The Alliance was no stranger to success, but 'tranquility' was almost an obscenity among the ranks. Ease in their efforts bred opportunity for ambush. Paranoia was a more acceptable word, since it kept them on the move, one step ahead of the Empire no matter the scale of their short-lived victory. They could mourn those left behind while in transit, when it didn't require the effort that kept them alive. They could not afford to leave behind their friends or their equipment, but it was a necessary evil to ensure that they would not have to leave so much behind the next time.

Instead, to compensate for the loss, they counted each breath of air as a small miracle. They could never be certain if the next daylight they saw would bring a wedge-shaped eclipse or a storm of turbolaser fire. They were hunted animals, not sure if they were growing weaker or finding new forms of strength.

Tonight, however, the strength they found had proven to be enough. Mere hours ago, they had been strained to the breaking point on too many fronts to count. Those who had been watching from the ground observed a sky full of fire and those who were struggling in space doubted that the struggle on the ground had ever taken place. There had been too many lives lost to catalogue. Heroes had been proved on both sides, but the sum of the parts added up to an impossible victory.

The end result was the only thing that occupied the minds of most of the survivors.

With the demise of their dictator, liberty was no longer an impossible dream or a fool's hope. It was no longer a capital crime to believe in justice.

This seemed to strike in stages with the same effect as a ram-ship.

The first class was largely comprised of those who had been involved in the ground assault because the effects of their labors meant swift success and immediate results. They had been able to catalogue and organize their prisoners, patch their wounds, and make the arrangements for a more large-scale celebration than the stunned embraces that they'd shared in the aftermath of a new sun on the horizon.

Most fell into the second class, of those who had rejoiced in the Death Star's destruction, but had been afforded no time to celebrate it until the rest of the Imperial presence in the system had been driven back or eradicated. They arrived piecemeal, the pilots arriving with weary grins and casualty reports that dampened their enthusiasm. The others took it upon themselves to raise their spirits instead.

There were, of course, those who fell into a third group. These were the ones that few dared to call pessimists or mopers, since they shared a common ground of insurmountable loss. Every soldier of the Alliance could name the squadmates or co-workers who had been caught on the wrong end of a turbolaser or had a console explode in their face. They could recite the casualties of each mission so that those who had passed on would never pass out of mind, but would not cause further torment with the psychological surprise attacks that inevitably resulted. The third group, however, consisted of those who had lost too many of those too close to them or who had lost the one most dear to them in the battle itself.

There were the compassionate few who stayed by their sides, waving away offered drinks so that they wouldn't wake up tomorrow monumentally depressed _and_ hungover. They were the friends who had perhaps been in that same situation and provided a shoulder to sob unrestrainedly on or a lap to curl up in. They could be found in both secluded corners and the middle of the action, wherever their expertise in listening, consoling, or simply embracing was required.

Throughout the night, the three groups tended to blend together until there were few recognizable symptoms of each. Daylight found most in a drunken stupor or relieved slumber, while others grudgingly reported for work. Duty never ended, even though the war had.

The first rays of daylight that crept through the thick canopy of branches spotlighted a solitary figure on a bridge who formed a fourth group of her own.

She had obviously not looked after herself since returning to the village. She had discarded the battle fatigues, but she looked just as intense as she had when sighting in on the enemy. Rings of sweat marked exertion, but the most remarkable stain on her borrowed dress was a dark stain that spread beneath the fingertips that rested against her bandaged bicep. She clearly took no note of it, but she didn't seem to be aware that she was still alive, much less upright.

Her eyes had not closed since she had last stood in this spot. They had spent many hours narrowed as she squinted down the barrel of a blaster with a singular determination, but they narrowed now against the sting of tears that she could not afford to shed. They were rimmed in red, but focused on the shadows beyond.

She heard nothing, cared for no contact, and saw nothing but the emptiness of the forest, but she had believed in many impossibilities in her lifetime and this one was no different.

She could repeat the words "The Empire is dead," but they turned to bile in her mouth because she had somehow lost her brother along with the enemy.

She paid no heed to the man who approached cautiously from the village until he set a mug of something hot and strong-smelling on the railing next to her hand. Even then, she did not move her gaze.

"I'm not coming back," Leia protested quietly.

Her voice was hoarse, both from the effort of weeping and not using it for too many hours.

"I know," Han assured her, "but if you feel compelled to keep this vigil, I'm going to at least make sure you're able to stay awake for it."

 _I couldn't sleep. I don't think I'll be able to until he returns because I know my brother is not dead._

 _He simply has chosen not to come back to me. I don't know why, I don't know if he's all right, I don't know if I'm just being an idiot..._

"Thank you."

She retrieved it, more out of courtesy than need, and took a tentative sip. It was tisane, strong and grainy, with a hint of sweetener.

 _He knows me too well._

"He's not dead," they said in unison, half-conscious of what the other person had said.

Then, almost in a whisper, she replied, "I know."

 _"I can feel it."_

In her peripheral vision, he moved to sit on the railing behind her, hands planted on either side to steady himself as he twisted to follow her gaze.

"Where do you think he is?" he asked unnecessarily.

Since "alive" was not a place, she had no answer. "I don't know," she confessed. "He's in the forest..."

"Well," Han grunted, glancing pointedly at the surrounding landscape, " _that_ narrows it down."

Her lower lip thrust forward and the edges of her mouth stretched before she could stop herself from smiling. "Nerf-herder," she said affectionately.

"Your Highnessness," he replied with a grin in his voice.

One hand reached up to clasp her shoulder and she leaned into the grip, grateful for something to anchor her to the familiar.

"Something terrible's happened," he murmured. "I need to leave you."

Her breath left her in a shuddering sigh. "Debriefing?"

"Is that what they call it? Rieekan seemed to use the words 'glorified torture' when he commed."

"That too," she agreed. "How soon?"

"As soon as I can get a shuttle," he explained. "I came here to see if you were all right..."

"And to find out what you're supposed to tell them about our missing team member?" she guessed.

She was no Jedi, but he sent out something like a telepathic blanch. "Right," he confirmed.

"He hasn't betrayed us," she insisted. "You have to make them realize..."

"I know," he protested. "I just need your help in figuring out how to make them."

 _I don't know if I can explain it myself and I know him better than anyone. What are you supposed to say?_

"I know that he left to go head-to-head with Vader..."

"Turn him back," she corrected.

There was a sharp intake of air. "Is the kid _delusional?_ "

"Possibly," she said, smile disappearing. "Luke had to face Vader to keep him from interfering in the mission, but his main objective was to redeem him."

"Well, that will go over well," Han snorted. "At least his heading off the enemy makes his actions for the benefit of the mission, so when he shows up, no one will have a particular desire to court-martial him. Putting Darth Dad in touch with his inner Jedi is something..."

"Inconceivable," she finished. "I know."

 _I still believe it._

He dismounted, then pulled the curtain of her hair away from her face to brush her cheek with a kiss. "I'd better go explain Commander Skywalker's heroism."

"You do that, General," she ordered, turning to kiss him properly. "I'll be waiting."

Her eyes followed him until he disappeared into the village proper, then turned back to the shadows to find she was no longer alone.

"Luke!"


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: Thanks for the kindness so far. If you have questions, issues to debate, feel free to post them. I'll respond to all of them and have fun with them. This story gets very philosophical and very intense at times.

A gasp escaped them both as their arms entwined around each other, pulling themselves into an embrace that had waited too long.

Leia gasped at the contact, at the surge of energy that she'd forgotten to miss in his absence, and at the sudden remembrance that she was still capable of feeling alive. Her arms hooked around his waist as her face buried itself in his tunic, relieved to find the coarse material against her skin.

Luke's gasp, however, was the agonized intake of breath of someone who hadn't meant to reveal their suffering.

"Luke," she repeated, voice a hoarse whisper. "What..."

"It's nothing," he insisted. "Rough night..."

But she had smelled something unnatural in the fibers of his tunic. Before he could protest any further, her fingers found the fastenings for the tunic and undid them quickly, pulling the fabric away.

"Don't..."

He stopped at the look on her face, which must have been comparable to the horrified stare that had accompanied the realization that he was the son of Vader. She certainly felt a wave of equal revulsion.

The burn patterns were irregular, as if maniacal rather than methodical torture. In places the skin had blistered; in others the blisters had ruptured. The worst were charred marks with bright red spots where the third-degree burns showed coagulated blood just below the surface.

"In the name of..." she breathed.

"'If you will not turn, you will be destroyed,'" he said quietly, pulling her hand away, but not letting go of it.

"He didn't succeed, though," she observed.

He nodded, face strangely blank. "This," he murmured, "is the price I paid to bring your brother back to you."

She wanted to do something, anything, to ease even the slightest amount of the pain that he had to be feeling, but since she had as much Force-power as a shorted-out control panel, she could only reach out with a trembling hand to touch his face, where she could be sure that he had not been burned. His cheek turned, leaning into her touch, indulging her that tactile comfort at least for the moment.

"Was it worth it?" she asked quietly.

"More than I can ever explain," he confirmed. "More than you will be able to understand."

"Help me," she requested, hand tracing downwards to rest against his heart.

He was obviously hesitant, didn't want to face the memories of last night, much less let her experience them as well, but at last he nodded. His hand reached up to cup her cheek and with that contact, half a dozen images flooded her mind.

 _Luke, writhing under a barrage of lightning that leapt from gnarled hands and a twisted soul as Vader watched impassively._

 _Vader, just as impassively, seizing the Emperor and throwing him down the reactor shaft._

 _Luke pulling him back from the edge of the shaft, collapsing under the weight to lay, breathless, in his father's embrace._

 _Luke's hands, trembling with fearful gentleness as he disengaged the mask..._

She shook her head, driving the possibility of any further explanation from her mind. Misunderstanding the gesture, he drew back, a distinctly injured look on his face.

"You have to unders..."

She shook her head again. "Sorry," she said sincerely. "I wasn't prepared to realize that you were right."

His eyes drifted closed and she seemed to hear the echo of a thought on the wind.

 _"Tell your sister you were right..."_

"How?"

"There was enough good in him to do what was necessary," she explained. "For that, I am grateful."

He let out a shuddering breath, then let his mouth curve slightly in a smile.

 _We've just won the war. Why does it feel like we all have to learn happiness from scratch?_

"Han's in debriefing," she said unnecessarily.

"Undoubtedly, trying to explain why you've been waiting for me to come back to Endor," he guessed.

"Something like that," she responded.

For a long moment, he was silent, his eyes focused on a point somewhere over her shoulder. Usually, this look tended to disconcert her, but there was something about the moment that gave her an unusual peace, as if calm had blanketed her mind.

"Do you trust me?" he queried.

"Always," she said instinctively.

Automatically, the cynical part of her that had awakened in the long hours of not knowing where he was or if he was still faithful to the reason he had left her reminded that she could hardly trust him if she had no answers to these questions.

He, however, had been the one to teach her how to trust again in the long months following Alderaan. He had not changed, even if she had.

Trust was not a matter of second-guessing this time around.

"Come with me," was his only request.

He did not dare to say a single word about the events of last night in the three hours that it took for them to reach the clearing.

It wasn't for lack of effort on her part. He asked many questions, drawing the sheepish story out of her memory with a series of heartfelt inquiries that were both teasing and concerned. She answered as best she could, endeavoring with ridiculous levity to draw a smile out of him. Usually, any mention of C-3PO in a battle setting would make him grin and shake his head, since he had at least twice as many stories as she about the fastidious protocol droid. At the very least, he would have rolled his eyes and started a new sentence with the words, "If you think that's bad..."

Instead, the entire trip was more of a one-sided conversation, verbally and emotionally. He took the account seriously, nodding at times, but on the whole treating it as a debriefing rather than an amiable story-telling.

As the sun climbed to its zenith, his hand snaked out to wrap around hers unexpectedly, the most affectionate thing he'd done since leaving the village. She shifted her hand, cradling his gently.

"How did you..." He hesitated, still not daring to look at her. "How did what I told you affect things?"

 _It changed everything and you left me with a crazy urge to chase after you or take a long jump off that bridge._

 _If Han hadn't been willing to hold me without needing to know why, I might have._

"I tried not to let it," she said instead. "Han didn't know what was going on, only that I needed to be held."

"Like the second anniversary," Luke mused.

She stared, unsure of how he had found out about that, since he'd been on the other side of the Galaxy at that point. Undoubtedly, Han had told him something about the second anniversary of Alderaan's destruction, when she had expected to celebrate the memorial alone and instead, he had arrived with the necessary supplies and the urge to help.

Well, the desire to help. He had been unable to find the Alderaanian green on such short notice, but somehow, his contacts had a bottle of hrashi. Hrashi was a strongly fermented drink that had hallucinogenic effects if consumed more than a little at a time. They'd poured one glass and taken the smallest of sips, wincing sympathetically in the hopes that the small amount wouldn't make them think that nerfs were coming through the viewport.

She remembered little of what ensued, except that it had taken four hours to get through the thirty minutes of memorial prayers and that she had spent a great deal of the time sobbing rather pathetically in the arms of a man she had sworn was nothing but a callous mercenary.

They had been at odds, barely avoiding slugging matches for a year by then, but it was the first time in a while that she had been allowed to consider him as the friend she had made on a Death Star.

In hindsight, it might have been the first indication that she had that he considered her as more than a friend.

"Pretty much," she admitted, "minus the drunken hysteria."

"Pity," he deadpanned. "The mission might have gone better if you were too drunk to care about diplomacy."

 _Great to hear that sense of humor, now say it as if you still have a heart in there._

 _You're scaring me._

 _You don't have to tell me everything, just tell me what I'm supposed to do to help you right now. I don't feel as if I can even find you through all the darkness that's surrounding your mind._

"I wish," he murmured at last, "that I could have stayed with you."

"Me, too," she admitted. "It was hard enough to face the battle without knowing that you were about to be killed by the father I never knew I had."

"I had no idea if I'd ever see you again," he explained, voice still flat. "I couldn't leave without explaining things to you."

 _"If I don't make it back, you're the only hope for the Alliance."_

 _"Luke, don't talk that way!"_

"I know," she assured him.

He rounded a tree, with her close behind, and they both stopped, breath freezing in their throats.

She could sense no malice from him, but she could feel nothing at all in the first place coming off of his mind, so she couldn't be sure that the Imperial shuttle in the clearing wasn't evidence of a betrayal.

 _Stop thinking this way. There's a perfectly good explanation for why he's afraid to talk about what happened to him on the Death Star._

 _Are you sure he's not afraid of what he did on the Death Star?_

 _Maybe both._

"I thought you trusted me," he observed.

 _I've trusted you since the moment a vertically-challenged stormtrooper told me "I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you." Why should I stop now?_

 _Why have I stopped now?_

"I trust you," she forced herself to say, forcing her mind to wrap around the idea and make it reality, "but you're not giving me any explanations."

 _Not about yesterday, not about where you were between the moment the Death Star evaporated and this morning, not about why you've brought me here._

"I had to steal one," Luke explained into the silence. "Even walkers of skies have problems with the atmosphere."

Her laugh surprised her, since she hadn't been able to muster that kind of positive emotional energy since the moment Luke had stated, "He is my father." It was something she almost thought she'd forgotten how to do.

And finally, when she looked over at his face, there was a smile there.

"Sorry," she said genuinely, "I think I'm just another victim of Imperial reality."

He did not speak, did not laugh with her, only sucked in a breath of remembrance and something like trepidation. She knew his sense of Imperial reality would have him clenching his right hand as he always had in the months since Bespin. It was the same reflexive motion that raised her hand to the diagonal slash of a scar beneath her cheek every time she spoke of her time on the Death Star.

The counselor that she had seen at Dodonna's request following Alderaan had talked about "trauma-wiring," the instinctive defenses that abuse and fear provided for the mind in order to cope with the extraordinary effects of what had been done to you. Certain responses to memory were pre-programmed to prevent further suffering.

Even before she had ever heard the name Anakin Skywalker, she had begun to turn instinctively to Luke in response to trauma. She surmised that half of her difficulties following Bespin had arisen from the fact that, on the long trip from Hoth, she had allowed Han to enter into her defensive programming. The bond to Luke had never quite been the same after that, but he had kept her just as prevalently as his first line of defense.

He knew all-too-well what she meant.

"I know," he said quietly.

Her hand traced a line across his cheekbone. "I was afraid you left your sense of humor on the Death Star."

He nodded. "I left a lot of things there."

"But not my brother," she countered. "You brought him back."

"Which is why you must trust me," he insisted.

 _You're starting to resemble my best friend again. I think that helps._

"Always," she promised.

Letting out a sigh, he released her hand and without another word, strode across the clearing to the shuttle. She followed with measure steps, forcing her breath to come steadily.

He waited at the top of the ramp, hand extended. "Your blaster?"

She stopped short. _What do you think I'll need it for? What exactly do you have in there?_

Her arms remained at her sides, neither reaching for her blaster nor offering it to him. "Imperial reality," she repeated quietly. "I trust you, but I need my own assurances."

His eyes closed and she could sense him summoning his strength not to argue the point. Finally, his eyes snapped open and he nodded curtly.

"Come with me," he requested.

Leia followed him silently to a cabin adjoining the cargo hold, which was a rarity on lambda-class shuttles. These were typically used for transport rather than comfort, so any quarters had to be a special modification.

Or perhaps this was the medical bay.

The door hissed open and her brain half-expected to see Lord Vader stalking towards her, hand outstretched to crush her throat.

 _Stop being ridiculous._

Instead, the room was dark, the only noise coming from the gentle hiss of an oxygen mask. Luke crossed the room in four strides, then murmured something she could not hear distinctly before returning to her side. Against her better judgment, she stepped into the room, allowing him to pass and bring the lights up to a dim glow.

Her eyes first sought out the mask, finding it covering thin, pale lips and a strong jawline. There was considerable scarring along the jaw and roping up across the cheekbones beneath the closed eyes. The skull was bare, but not shaven. Her eyes swept down a powerful torso and strong arms to where the right arm ended in a truncated mass of wires.

She did not, however, recognize the man until the eyes flickered open.

Even then, she only recognized them because they were the same eyes she saw every time she looked at Luke.

 _"He is my father."_

 _Father._

 _Vader._

She stumbled back, hand scrabbling desperately for the blaster that was no longer there.

 _Ohsithohsithohsithohsith…_

She whirled to find Luke casually placing it in his own holster.

For all his talk of trust, it had been a trap.

A shriek escaped her throat as she tackled him, hands beating at his shoulders and face as she screamed words that she couldn't understand or explain. He didn't respond, only pinned her and dragged her bodily from the cabin, letting the door slide shut behind them.

She pushed away, the force of her shove slamming her into the door, but it did not stop her from lunging again.

She didn't notice that her blaster had returned to his hand before his casual betrayal erupted in a blue flash and tormented unconsciousness.

 _Something was wrong._

 _Luke had not denied it on the_ Home One _, when she voiced her concern, had only suggested that she ask him again some other time._

 _On the eve of battle, with her nerves jangling and his silence a torment to them both, she followed him out of the gathering hut where they had pled their case before the Ewoks in order to ask him again sometime._

 _The noises of celebration faded into the mist that wound its way lazily through the trees, but she did not take time to notice, only drifted in the path of the mist until her unhesitating steps led her to her friend's side._

 _On a night like this, with time to herself, she would be looking to the stars for comfort or answers, but Luke was pointedly avoiding the gaze of the durasteel watcher in the sky. He looked down into the abyss of the forest below, but not as if contemplating making an abrupt reunion with the ground. His expression suggested, instead, that he understood the darkness beyond._

 _Perhaps he did, more than she could explain._

 _The second Death Star terrified all of them, but there was something about the people on board that seemed to turn his mind into molten lava._

 _This was no great surprise, since she had been at Bespin and knew how fervently Lord Vader had sought after young Skywalker. Against her better judgment, she had stayed at his side in the long night following their frantic rescue of him, listening to his whimpering questions._

"Ben, why didn't you tell me?" __

 _She couldn't ask what Ben Kenobi had failed to tell him that had tormented him in the night after facing down Lord Vader, but he had never mentioned it in his waking hours._

 _And she could not bring herself to ask him to bring the demons from his dreams into his conscious reality. She could only offer silent support in those first days of fevered torment._

 _Tonight, however, she could not let the silence endure. She had to draw the words from his mouth, let him give voice to his fears so that they would be left on this bridge and not be carried with him into battle._

 _"Luke, what's wrong?"_

 _His head came up as he turned to face her, but it was a long moment before his eyes cleared and focused on her._

 _"Leia."_

 _He was regarding her as if he'd never seen her before._

 _No, not as if he'd never seen her before. It was as if she resembled someone that he had never before recognized._

 _He opened his mouth, then seemed to hesitate, but her hand went to his arm and he let out a shuddering sigh of something like relief._

 _"Do you remember your mother?"_

 _She remembered too well, remembered a thousand nights of laughter and empathy that had been cut short during her time in the Senate by a senseless attack. She remembered smiling eyes and shared confidences…_

 _"Your real mother?" he clarified._

 _Her stream of consciousness stopped dead in its tracks. Long ago, she had confessed that she was a Princess by upbringing, but not by birth. It was not common knowledge on Alderaan, since Bail had legally claimed her as his heir in her naming ceremony, but at times, she knew too well that she was not his._

 _The mother who had died before Leia could begin to remember her voice was rarely spoken of and Luke, after her admission, had never broached the subject again._

 _Until tonight._

 _"Just a little," she confessed. "She died when I was very young."_

 _"Tell me."_

 _The urgent pleading in his voice was unusual, especially for a man who had been competently raised by hard-working farmers. Just as she never spoke of her first mother, he rarely spoke of the fact that he was an orphan._

 _Facing this challenge, however, seemed to be draining him of all the protective energies that he had been given._

 _So, instead, she shared the protection of a smile she could barely remember and a love that was undeniable, even without proof._

 _"She was…"_

An angel.  
 _  
"Very beautiful," she finished the thought. "Kind, but sad."_

 _He let out an almost inaudible sigh, slumping in a kind of relief at the meager offering._

 _"Luke," she pressed gently, "tell me. What's troubling you?"_

Everything and nothing at all. __

 _His hand covered hers, but it was trembling and provided no warmth. Neither did the haunted eyes that met hers a moment later._

 _"Vader's here," he explained, "now, on this moon."_

 _Her instinct was to shy away, as if his knowledge gave him a connection to the Dark Lord himself. As soon as she had quashed this impulse, a nervous panic set in._

 _All was lost before they had even joined the battle._

 _"How do you know?" she queried, forcing her voice to remain steady._

 _"I can feel his presence."_

 _If it had been her, that would have been half of the explanation already._

 _"He can feel when I'm near," he continued. "That's why I have to go. As long as I stay, I'm endangering the group and our mission."_

 _It was a rehearsed speech, not to her, but in order to convince himself that he wasn't completely insane for thinking this way._

 _It did nothing to convince her, though._

 _"I have to face him."_

 _"Why?"_

 _She hadn't meant to voice the question, but her incredulity could not restrain it. Once again, he was looking anywhere but at her._

 _"Because he is my father."_

 _And just like that, with five words, the other half of the explanation fell into place. The six months of nightmares and daytime tremors, the reason why he had spent so much time attuning himself to the Force…_

 _All was stated in those five words, but they only brought more questions._

 _She half-wanted to draw away, to keep herself illogically as far away from the son of Vader as she could get, but logic took over in time for her to refrain from committing that crime._

 _He was the son of Skywalker and somehow, Skywalker had become Vader. That was the extent of his legacy, nothing more._

 _"Your_ father… _" she repeated, the words turning to ash in her mouth._

 _"There's more," he pressed on, stalwart in this madness. "It won't be easy for you to hear, but you must. If I don't come back, you're the only hope for the Alliance."_

 _This time, she did jerk away, pushing to her feet as her cheeks flamed with frustration. "Luke," she snapped, "don't talk that way."_

 _She was commanding him to be silent a mere five minutes after resolving to talk this out with him._

 _"You have a power…"_

Vader's power. __

 _"…That I don't understand and could never have."_

Thankfully.  
 _  
He was on his feet now as well. "You're wrong, Leia."_

 _He was rarely this audacious, but when he believed strongly enough in something, it would manifest itself._

 _"You have that power, too."_

 _Her breath stopped altogether._

 _"In time, you'll learn to use it as I have."_

To earn more pain and suffering.  
 _  
His gaze kept drifting, as if he could not bear to look at her._ What is so troubling about the idea that I can share this sort of burden with you? __

 _"The Force is strong in my family," he said, almost in a whisper. "My father has it, I have it, and…"_

 _He locked gazes with her and the intensity would have terrified her, but there was something strangely comforting in the earnestness of that stare._

 _"My sister has it."_

 _Her lips parted to respond a full second before she realized that she had no quick retort to that statement. The statement, the implication of her parentage, should have brought bile to the back of her throat instead of words, but instead, her mind forgot the fact that their father was her enemy and locked in on one thought._

My brother. __

 _"Yes," he confirmed. "It's you, Leia."_

 _A dozen images of the involuntary comforts that they had offered each other by instinct rather than request, of the holo where Han had sworn they'd learned how to smile from each other, of the way that his voice had called her back to Bespin rose to her mind._

 _It was the only logical explanation._

 _"I know," she confessed. "Somehow, I've always known."_

 _He nodded. "Then, you know why I must confront him."_

 _"NO!"_

 _She stepped in, leaning against his arm with her hand. "Luke, run away," she pleaded. "Far away. If he can feel your presence, then leave this place."_

Even if he has to come after me instead. __

 _"I wish I could go with you."_

She came to, half-expecting to hear the thrum of the hyperdrive against her back, but the shuttle was still.

The arm cradling her against Luke's chest, however, was not. It trembled as if it were a great strain to bear her as a burden. Perhaps it was.

Her mind caught up quickly to why she was regaining consciousness in the first place and her back arched as her legs scrabbled for purchase on the deck. Luke set her down gently and she twisted on the spot to move away from him, hissing as she would at a predator.

"Easy," Luke requested. "You have nothing to fear from me."

She laughed shortly, but it was nothing like the burst of humor that she had finally let loose earlier.

"You shot me…"

"With a stun bolt…"

"After making me promise to trust you…"

"And you said you did…"

"With my own blaster!" she finished angrily.

He had no quick protest to answer that and she almost smirked.

"I didn't want to hurt you," he said and she was surprised to find that she believed him, "but I can't let you kill him."

"Why not?" she spat. "He was more than willing to kill me."

"Vader was," he agreed, "but your father…"

"My father died on Alderaan," she said flatly. "That monster, that _thing_ is not him."

He blanched, the strongest demonstration of emotion that she'd seen on him since he had asked about her mother on a bridge among the Ewoks.

"You're wrong," he stated quietly.

"That's not for you to decide," she shot back.

Silently, he placed her blaster on the deck and slid it across to her, then stood. "I trust you," he admitted, "but if you attack him, I will have to defend him again."

Apparently, he'd lost his priorities on the Death Star and they were there with his mind.

So, instead of attacking, she set up her own defense, thumbing her commlink on and dialing it before he could stop her.

"Han," she said breathlessly, "you'd better not have turned this thing off or I'll have your head on a durasteel charger…"

"Charming as always," Han laughed. "To what do I owe the honor of this call?"

"I need a favor."

He sighed dramatically. "A go-blow-up-another-Death-Star favor or the extra pair of socks variety?"

 _A favor that I hoped I'd never have to ask you._

"Somewhere in between," she said shortly. "I need backup. I need to make an arrest and I can't…"

 _Trust._

"…Ask Luke to be my only support," she finished.

"How many?"

"You and three others," she requested. "Try to keep it to Wedge, Rieekan, and Chewie. I'm not sure who else I can trust this far."

"Fair enough," he grunted, sounding extremely curious, but trusting her enough to wait for an explanation. "We'll be there before you can start to miss us."  
-

The morning seemed to have grown unnaturally cold in the short time she'd spent on the shuttle.

No, not short time. There was no telling how long the stun blast had kept her under and Luke could have kept her unconscious as long as necessary. He'd done it once when she'd been wounded on a mission and he certainly had more incentive to keep her subdued at the moment.

 _Why not keep me under sedation, in that case? What does he have to gain from this?_

She tucked her hands into the long sleeves of her dress, arms pressed just below her ribcage, but did not dare to approach Luke as she left the shuttle. He didn't move, either, only stared at her with a horrified inability to recognize the woman she'd become.

"Why?"

She didn't answer directly, only lifted one hand to run pointedly along the scar on her cheek, then down the length of her nose. He would remember that both the gash that caused the scar and the broken nose had been inflicted by Vader in his less accommodating moments.

"Imperial reality," she echoed her earlier sentiments.

He approached, his gait about as threatening as an Ewok's waddle, but the gloved hand that he wrapped around hers was its own silent accusation.

"I have my own Imperial reality," he reminded, "but I'm not the one who wanted to commit patricide in there."

"I'd have committed patricide if he were my father," she retorted acerbically, the acid words fueled by the bile rising in her throat. "Unfortunately for your accusation, my father was killed with Alderaan."

Often, when she went on this sort of tirade, he would calm her by saying, "You know you don't mean that."

This time, she was absurdly grateful that he didn't try.

"He's turned," he offered lamely, desperately. "Why won't you let mercy take its course as I have?"

"'Forgiveness precedes justice only when there is sincere repentance,'" she quoted Bail. "I'll give him enough opportunities to be a penitent, but there must be justice."

 _Just not vigilante justice._

"What do you intend to do?" he asked, rather unnecessarily.

He knew exactly what she intended to do.

"There must be justice," she repeated quietly, pulling her hand out of his grip.

"You want justice, but you're willing to be his murderer?" he asked incredulously. "Where is the justice in that?"

"I was prepared to fire on an enemy, not a father," she snapped. "I didn't _think…_ "

"I'm not talking about that," he shot back. "If you're demanding justice, you are demanding a trial."

"It's the least he deserves," she pronounced, forcing her voice to return to a normal timbre. "It's only what his victims deserve."

"It will only end in death," Luke responded in kind.

She nodded, but could not bring herself to refute his claim. He was probably repeating the words in his head, over and over again.

 _"It's the least he deserves."_

"Why do you think," she inquired softly, "that I chose and restricted every person who will come to this place? I did not choose the vigilantes or the ones who deserved to hold the blaster barrel to his head. I chose those who I could trust to be more cool-headed than I am about this matter."

This, at the very least, seemed to appease him slightly, but the thought that, if they chose to be less than cool-headed, they were also the first she would trust to eliminate the enemy twisted her stomach into a knot of molten lead.

"I hate…"

 _Him._

"…This," she finished.

He didn't ask for an explanation of what 'this' was or why she hated it with such force that it made her eyes sting, only nodded.

"I hate what it's doing to us already," he added.

She looked away, letting her hands drop to her sides, leaving her defenseless and open. It was classic diplomatic body language that she rarely allowed herself to use. Luke had seen it often enough to know that it was her sign of a cease fire.

 _I hate that I feel I can't trust you right now. I hate that I am proud to be your sister, but afraid of what that might mean. I hate the kind of blindness that you are already asking of me in the name of our family._

"Someone call for a ride?"

Han's voice startled her, but she took it in stride, crossing to embrace him tightly before pressing a brief, grateful kiss to his lips.

"I thought you'd never come," she said honestly, leaving enough of a teasing tone in her voice to rob it of any accusatory effects.

His gaze took in Luke's rather uncharacteristic stance, the frustrated agitation on his face. He hadn't been able to see his friend since they had gathered in the Ewok village, but now was not a time for questions.

"Don't worry," he responded. "We'll do our best to make up for lost time." 

"You seem to be in a bit of a hurry," Rieekan greeted her with a frown and a kiss on the forehead. "Is everything all right?"

Implied in the tone was the chastisement that the dawn of victory was no time to be having panic attacks, but as was typical with Rieekan, he didn't even let that show in his face, much less voice the opinion. Having grown up with this man a near-permanent resident of the Palace, however, she didn't need him to do so.

Luke had confused her, Han had inspired a sense of relief, but Rieekan simply made her homesick for all things familiar and just.

 _I want to go home, Carlist._

Han was watching her closely, knowing that she might well admit to Rieekan things that he would never hear from her own lips and hoping that the four words that he had used to conclude his thought would force her to give some explanations.

Those four words, however, were Rieekan's only reliable way of leaving the invitation to impart of her experience open. It would be easy to hastily claim that she was fine, but she rarely took the easy way out.

Luke was watching her as well, brow furrowed, eyes haunted already by the terror of what she had not yet done. His reasons for fearing her answer were both a galaxy apart and too closely related for comfort to Han's motivations.

Wedge and Chewie seemed to be taking things in stride, as expected. Wookiees were known for their violent tendencies, but Leia had come to recognize that the old excuse of "only when provoked" seemed to actually hold true for Han's personal upholstery. Wedge was simply experienced enough in dealing with Imperial surrenders and charged situations to be trusted with this sort of operation.

She had chosen those she could trust to do the right thing because she had no idea if her heart knew what the right thing to do was at this moment.

"No," was her simple response after an inordinate amount of hesitation.

 _You're upholding and sustaining both the law and the spirit of justice. Why are you even wondering if you're becoming your own enemy?_

His hand squeezed her shoulder gently. "Should we go inside to change that?"

She shook her head rather sharply, arms still pressed to her abdomen. "You need some warning," she explained. "It's more than I got, but it's what needs to be said."

She caught Luke's half-guilty, half-apologetic expression, but could not summon the energy to return it, only acknowledged it with an inclination of the head.

 _"We have no time for our sorrows, Commander."_

"Out with it," Han encouraged, moving to her side and sliding an arm around her waist.

Inexplicably, this gesture of affection inspired a bout of violent trembling instead of the relief that she had expected to experience. Han, in the past, might have withdrawn at this reaction, but recognized instead the need to be held.

"Take your time," Wedge counseled helpfully. "Maybe, if Luke can..."

"This is something she needs to say," Luke interrupted quietly. "I won't stop her."

"Good idea," Han laughed. "Most people who interrupt Her Eloquence don't live long enough to tell the tale."

"Vicious rumors," Leia responded with a smile that surprised herself.

"Ah," Han sighed. "Now I recognize you. What's going on?"

She stepped back, pivoting to face all of them, but the gesture put her immediately into the defense stance that she'd been taught as a girl.

 _No one's going to ambush you, except your own emotions._

She brought her leg forward, instead adopting the at-ease pose of a soldier giving a debriefing. Her arms remained folded across her chest, the only sign that she was on the defense.

"Carlist and Wedge," she began quietly, "you haven't heard any of this, so I'll beg the others' indulgence in repeating myself."

"Fair enough," Han interjected.

 _Please, just let me get through this without having time to think about what I have to say. It will be easier if I act on instinct._

"I am adopted," she stated. "Bail and Breha Organa had been unable for many years to have children, so when a friend of Bail's died in childbirth, he took it upon himself to raise her daughter as his own. In my Naming, the traditional ceremony that all Alderaanian children undergo at the age of one month, he made me his rightful heir. Everyone was used to this statement in Namings, but those few who knew recognized it as legalizing the adoption. It was never spoken of again."

There was respectful silence as always happened when she spoke about Alderaan. _So far, so good._

"I never knew my mother's name," she continued. "I probably would not have known that I had ever been another mother's child, except I kept having dreams about a woman. One day, I was in my mother's room when I recognized the woman standing next to her in a few of the holos as the woman from my dreams. It was, however, too dangerous to know anything except that she had been my mother once upon a lifetime. They told me that this was because she had been a personal enemy of both Vader and the Emperor. That was enough explanation for me.

"They never mentioned, however," she said carefully, "that I was not her only child."

"Which is where Luke comes into the picture," Rieekan guessed grimly.

Leia nodded. "She was a personal enemy of the Empire at its highest levels, so her children would be in danger if they were discovered. Luke was left with his father's family on Tatooine and I was taken in by the Organas."

"Amazing," Wedge interjected, grin almost hesitant on his face. "Fairly lucky, then, that he was around to rescue you from the Death Star."

 _If you can call it luck._

She nodded.

"And when did you know of this connection?" Rieekan inquired.

"Just before the battle," Leia clarified quietly.

"Amazing," Wedge repeated.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Luke agreed.

She sighed almost inaudibly, restraining herself as best she could. "You haven't asked why our mother was a personal enemy of Vader."

This was, of course, new information to all except for Luke and she had no idea how to go about the particular wording.

"She was the wife of Anakin Skywalker, one of the Jedi Knights. Most of them died in the Purges at the Emperor's behest. He, instead, chose to join Palpatine and became Darth Vader."

There was a collective intake of breath, but the revulsion and horror that she had felt upon first recognizing the connection between Skywalker and Vader was not evident on any of their faces.

Rieekan's expression had not changed, but he nodded slightly. Wedge was eyeing the shuttle warily, but his mouth was turned down slightly in recognition of this new information. Chewbacca was unreadable.

Luke looked as though she'd just spit-roasted an Ewok.

Not surprisingly, Han was the first to speak. He had no qualms about opening his mouth before his brain kicked into gear.

"You've got Vader in there."

"Our father," Luke corrected. "He saved my life and has returned to his allegiance with the Jedi…"

"To what end?" Rieekan queried. "What does he have to gain from being here?"

"He wants to make amends…"

"And I want his arrest," Leia interrupted. "As a precautionary measure, I do not think it would be a wise idea for him to simply be wandering around unhindered."

"There would be a mutiny when it was discovered," Rieekan agreed. "What makes you think he'll submit to arrest?"

She glanced at Luke, then had to look away. "If he was willing to come here," she surmised, "he will be willing to make concessions on a few basic levels."

"You trust him that far?"

The question was directed to Luke.

"I trusted him enough for him to save me," he retorted. "I trusted him enough to bring him here. This is not the course I would choose by any stretch of the imagination, but its merits cannot be denied."

"Good," Leia said curtly, throwing him a grateful look at last. "I've asked you here because there are few that I can trust this far and this deeply to do the job as it is required. Besides which, having two Rogues will bring this back from the land of the impossible."

A slight ripple of amusement went through the group, dissipating the tension.

"If Carlist can handle the official arrest," Leia suggested, "the rest of you will be there for the purposes of keeping him in line. He's pretty weak, so hopefully Force-choking is not an option."

That was less amusing, but they followed her inside nonetheless.

It was good to be trusted.

Her feet beat the same harried rhythm as her pulse as they approached the cabin once more. She had been tempted to let Luke lead the way, since she wasn't sure that she could have found her own face with both hands at that point, but he hung back, automatically fitting into the role of wingman to Wedge.

She envied that habit, envied the fact that he could still find something familiar as an anchor when he had casually dismantled so many things that she had long considered constant. Of course, when he had been in the same transitional period, she had been virtually unable to cope in the same way that he was now. She had lost too much, suffered too much, and she had begun to forget how to hope.

And it was all at the hands of the man he expected her to call Father.

In the long, lonely hours following the battle, she had come to realize that his uncharacteristic melancholy had everything to do with what Vader must have said to him at Bespin. The debriefing he'd given on those events, spoken in a tremulous voice as his hands twisted around a handkerchief, mentioned that the had been offered an alliance with Vader. The fact that the _Falcon_ had retrieved him at the bottom of a ventilation shaft was evidence enough that he had not accepted.

She had never forced herself to learn what exactly the terms of the alliance had been, because his torment was ample explanation.

 _Did he offer you my freedom if you became just as much a slave as he is? Did he threaten you? Did he torture your mind the way he did mine?_

Judging from the amount of time that had passed between her screamed warning to him and the moment when they turned the _Falcon_ on its heel for the return trip to Bespin, the conversation could not have lasted more than a few minutes. The devastation to his spirit was comparable, however, to what she had suffered in three weeks on the Death Star.

Either Vader had learned to aim more effectively or the weapons he used against Luke were much more powerful.

Before she allowed justice to claim him, she would ask this man who claimed to have given her life what precisely he had done to the one person she loved most.

"Charges?" Rieekan inquired quietly as he checked the power pack on his blaster.

"Keep it simple," she counseled. "He has committed crimes against civilization. If we went into specifics, he would die of old age before we got through the first five years of the war."

He smiled tightly, then raised one smudged hand to cup her cheek as he kissed her forehead. "Crimes against civilization it is."

Her eyes drifted closed against frustrated tears, blocking the sight of the wary procession from her mind. By the time her emotions had been restrained, she was the last to enter the room. Luke and Wedge automatically took up post on either side, not quite blocking her view, but keeping her out of the proverbial line of fire.

Darth Skywalker was more conscious this time, but there was neither condemnation nor contempt in those eyes. There was no hostility or aggression.

The only thing Anakin Vader seemed to be capable of was a heartfelt resignation.

 _Either he's a very good actor or he has his cooperative days._

"Are you Anakin Skywalker, alias Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith?" Rieekan asked unnecessarily, for procedure's sake.

The voice was reedy, spoken as though struggling for each breath. "I am he."

"Anakin Skywalker," Rieekan began quietly.

Rieekan faltered, then straightened his shoulders and began once more with his customary steadiness of voice and clearness of mind. This sort of calm was the exact reason why she had asked him to come.

"Anakin Skywalkar, alias Darth Vader," he repeated, "by the graces of the Rebel Alliance of Free Peoples, I charge you with crimes against the sentient beings of this universe, including but not limited to murder, treason, sabotage, and war crimes to be determined at a future date."

He had more calm than she could muster and more eloquence than she could have summoned at such a time.

"Will you submit to our jurisdiction?"

"Yes," the voice coming from the husk of a man rasped.

Han moved forward, hands trembling so violently that they nearly released the binders that Luke had supplied. But in a moment, it was over and the monster who had kept him in carbonite for six months was shackled. Chewie moved forward, interposing himself between the two men in case Vader decided to abandon reason.

"This is getting stranger all the time," Han mumbled. "What's next, etiquette lessons with Palpatine?"

"I'll see if I can make those arrangements," Leia said with a slight smile. "In the meantime, we need to get Lord Vader some medical attention."

"I'll get us airborne," Wedge stammered helpfully, "and notify the Fleet that we've got some interesting cargo inbound."

"Thank you," Rieekan said quietly.

Leia caught Han's eye, then pointedly moved from the compartment. He followed without question, without needing to wonder if she'd explain this whole mess.

He probably had no idea if there was an explanation, but it didn't matter. If this was what she had been enduring for the last days, there was something far more potent than curiosity that he needed to offer her.

She turned and he held up a hand. "You are a Skywalker, not him," he said quietly.

For once in his life, he had seemed to say the right thing to her, since she was once more in his embrace, chest heaving with relieved breaths.

"I haven't been able to believe it until now," she admitted. "Thank you for that, at the very least."

He smiled, not quite knowing why. "Like I've always said, always room for a second opinion." 


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: I apologize for keeping you waiting when I've already written the story. On June 24, I got a contract to publish my first book and that means that between June 24 and October 15, I will be very busy getting everything in order. It's very thrilling and very stressful and I hope you'll continue to read, even if I only post once a week until then. Thanks for your great responses! For Hapes and Herpes, I have been guilty of writing a Sith!Luke story and, 14 years later, disagree with which Skywalker twin would follow in Vader's footsteps. This will be discussed later.

Since they could hardly announce their passenger and the only way to make an unobtrusive entrance was to wait for a security bay, there was a considerable waiting period. Luke and Wedge were piloting the Imperial shuttle and Han and Chewbacca were in the cockpit, trying to argue their way into a docking bay.

No one had liked the idea of her being alone, much less alone with her father, but seeing as someone had to keep an eye on him and he was less likely to attack a member of his own family, they grudgingly accepted her decision to stay at his side.

She was unsure of why she did it, even more so when she felt no compulsion to keep a blaster trained on him. The oppressive weight against her mind that she had feared to sense ever since Bespin was gone for the moment, but that meant virtually nothing. He could simply be biding his time.

His eyes were still closed, half out of weariness and, she suspected, half out of memory of what his gaze had set off in her mind, but she could not bear to keep her eyes on him. It was not out of any fear inspired by the scars and disfigurement, but the distortion of soul that she was afraid to lose sight of.

"Will you not even look at me?"

His voice startled her, but she could not respond physically.

"Will _you_ not, Lord Vader? Or are you afraid of what you might find?"

In her peripheral vision, she saw those disconcertingly familiar eyes open and focus on her, but she did not return the favor.

"You remind me too much of your mother."

"Oh?" she asked, forcing levity into her voice as she smoothed her skirt. "I hate to wonder what she fell in love with if beating and mind-raping me inspires nostalgia."

He had the audacity to flinch at that statement, but did not refute it.

"You know nothing of her," he accused.

"Undoubtedly your fault," she retorted.

 _Stop it, Organa. Why the Sith are you playing a game of one-up with him? It gets you nothing but an isolation cell and mind-jagger._

"Undoubtedly," he conceded, still not daring to open his eyes, "but that is not what I was referring to."

It was beyond repulsive to her that she was being asked to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"How does this remind you of my mother?" she demanded.

"Have you heard of Geonosis?"

Her throat tightened at the memory, since Bail had made sure she remembered that it was the start of the Clone Wars and a major factor in giving Chancellor Palpatine some undeserved emergency powers.

"Who hasn't?"

His mouth stretched into a grim approximation of a smile. "Two hundred Jedi were sent there," he recited. "Forty-nine of us came back at all and there were few of us who weren't seriously injured."

 _Us. At least now I can pinpoint a time when he wasn't Vader. It was too long ago._

"My Master and I took on Count Dooku, who had been one of the Jedi, but we were no match for him. I lost my arm that day, but I came close to losing my mind as well."

 _It didn't take long for you to lose your senses again._

"And yet you did the same to Luke," she observed.

Their eyes finally met with accusatory force. "I never said I was proud of it."

 _Stop feeling ashamed of your lack of compassion. He deserves none._

"And my mother?" she prompted. "She was among the Jedi…"

He shook his head slightly. "The Senator I was supposed to be protecting when she decided to play hero and rescue my Master. She was attacked by a nexu and falling out of the transport that was taking us to the staging area of the battle dislocated her shoulder, but she was as stubborn as you have always been. She only received enough medical treatment to keep her from bleeding to death and then insisted on staying at my side until I was stabilized."

The grim smile turned into something more wistful. "I think she knew that I didn't have the will to live, so she was lending me hers until she could be sure that I would recover. It was during that time of recovery that we agreed to marry. A week later, with only Threepio and Artoo as witnesses, we fulfilled that agreement."

It was an unconventional love story, wholly unlike the fairy tale of Bail and Breha Organa who had followed all the ancient Taiali rules of courtship as if they were doctrine. He had been the most powerful man on Alderaan and in most of the Senate, but he still had proved himself worthy of her affections through service to her parents. They had wed after she came of age in an elaborate ceremony that might as well have been recorded in holo for all the publicity it received.

The story of her true parents was hardly as traditional, but it would have brought a lump to her throat if thought had caught up to emotion one minute later.

"How long did that love story last before you killed her?" she asked flatly.

His eyes narrowed in a familiar gesture that Luke often used when incredulous that anyone could ever come up with such an insulting suggestion.

"I was not the one," he enunciated carefully.

"Oh, no?" she mused. "You certainly had enough anger to accomplish it."

For a fleeting moment, her throat clenched as though being compressed by an invisible force.

" _The Jedi turned against me. Don't you turn against me!"_

"LET HER GO!"

The impression passed, leaving her rattled and him penitent. Her compassion, however, was utterly spent and her feet scrabbled against the floor pushing her away from his bedside.

"I didn't mean to…"

"Is that how she died?" she burst out.

"I was not the one," he repeated. "I thought I might have been until I saw her fourteen years ago."

Her breath caught in her throat again, but it had nothing to do with a Force-choke. "When I was _ten?_ "

He nodded. "I did not know you existed, since she went to great lengths to keep you safe, but that same care somehow extended to me when I was critically injured on a mission. A medic saved my life several times and I recognized the signature on my heart that your mother always left. It was no surprise, then, to find that when I requested the medic to continue in my service, I found myself facing Padme again."

They were both silent for a long moment in the wake of the admission that had allowed her to hear her mother's name for the first time from her father's lips. The story of their betrothal had induced a lump in her throat, but this brought tears to her eyes.

"I didn't know," she murmured.

"Nor did I," he agreed. "I could not sense her in the Force and the Emperor reported her dead at my hands. She did her duty, though the bitterness never left her alone, and when it came time for me to leave, I asked her to come with me. She should have been rewarded for her efforts, but all she asked was that I allow her and the world that had adopted her to be forgotten so she would never live in fear of my return. I promised that reward, but three weeks later, she was murdered while trying to save the life of a stormtrooper."

There were no hollow assurances to be offered or empathy, since she did not know how much of it he might have accepted in the first place, but something more important was happening.

It was the first time that two enemies by principle and family by birth allowed themselves to grieve for the same things.

The Alliance had wasted no time in putting the effects of victory into motion, so that two hours before local midnight, the convocation of the Alliance gathered to elect the first leader of the New Republic. The votes were carefully tallied, with C-3PO acting as a translator and the only opposition coming from a very confused Ewok child who withdrew from the race and the gathering as fast as his legs could carry him once Threepio had explained that he had just volunteered to handle the problems of the Galaxy.

As a result, as the drum pattern indicating midnight sounded, it was announced that Mon Mothma of Chandrila would lead them into the new era as she had guided them in the dark days of the Empire.

She had only been in office thirteen hours, yet the security measures were equal to someone who had been in office for months. She had despised the idea of bodyguards, alleging that no man should have to die if her time came to pass into the next world. General Rieekan had grudgingly allowed this, but kept her 'aides' trained to Royal Guard efficiency. Now, there was a contingent of six bodyguards and the leader of the Galaxy looked ready to strangle the personnel director in charge of that mistake.

"Minister Organa," she greeted.

"Not so loud," Leia cautioned with a slight smile. "They might hear you and assign an entourage to me."

"Come now," Mon Mothma teased. "You've had an entourage ever since you arrived on Yavin. I rather think you like them."

"Them, yes," Leia agreed. "But your entourage tripled in size since I saw you last. It's a dangerous trend."

This sort of banter was not unusual between them, since Leia had learned her wit from one of Mon Mothma's oldest friends, but it was the first time she had to fake her enjoyment of it.

And somehow, her mentor was picking up on that fact. Her mouth slackened into a grim line and she stepped aside to let Leia into her office.

"All right, Leia," she sighed. "I'll stop threatening bodyguards if you tell me why you've come for a visit."

Her hand trembled as she reached out to squeeze the other woman's arm affectionately as she passed. It was a silent signal not to worry so much, but they both knew that believing it would take some doing.

At least the furnishings had never changed. Mon Mothma was not one to hoard the better parts of shipments, so her desk was still comprised of discarded hull strapped to two packing crates. Her chairs were either surplus ejector seats or rather worn self-conforming sacks. Leia chose one of the latter, letting the material attempt to swallow her until she felt either pinned or engulfed by her surroundings.

"I never thought," she admitted, "that I'd hear you addressing me as Minister of State."

"I never thought I'd get the chance," Mothma retorted as she chose the next 'chair' over. "We'll have to get used to it, I suppose."

For a long moment, they were both silent, unsure or unwilling to break that moment of disbelieving relief. Leia's thoughts were anything but quiet, but she took the moment of silence to refocus her efforts.

"We took a prisoner this morning," she began.

"So I understood from Rieekan's invocation of High Command security clearance," Mothma supplied. "Was it something that would have made your Father proud?"

That was a familiar enough question, Mothma's oft-used way of reminding her younger counterpart of the benefits of acting for the good of the Rebellion. It had never felt like a gutshot before.

"Which one?"

Mothma did not flinch or direct a questioning gaze in her direction, only nodded with grim acknowledgement. "Then, you've heard of Anakin."

Her mind froze at the name that she had not been aware of for so many years. Of course Mothma would have heard of the Jedi Anakin Skywalker. Certainly after Skywalker's squadron was responsible for liberating Chandrila in the closing months of the Clone Wars. She had mentioned this briefly upon meeting another fighter pilot named Skywalker one month after Yavin.

She had simply never mentioned that the name meant anything other than 'liberator' to her.

"Obviously," Leia replied carefully, shifting with great difficulty so that her body language expressed passive aggression rather than affability, "you have as well."

She couldn't exactly pull off the effort of grandstanding while half-sprawled on the office floor, but the Organa Glare of Death required no dexterity. Unfortunately, being Mon Mothma's top confidante for the duration of the war had rendered it a thoroughly useless tool against her defenses.

She had to settle for indignant hostility.

Mon Mothma was not entirely oblivious to this sort of posturing, so she did Leia the favor of moving to her explanation with fairly gracious ease.

"From the first time Bail presented you to me when you were eleven," she expounded, "I could see your mother in your eyes and in your bearing. I knew her well when we were both Senators, so when she disappeared and you were instated as Bail's heir, I guessed that she had died and you had been adopted for your protection."

"Right so far," Leia agreed. "Did you know Anakin, then?"

The other woman's gaze slid away, coming to rest on the hands folded in her lap.

"I knew what he became."

"And you said nothing."

She had rarely blamed Mon Mothma for anything, but those four words carried more accusation than any others she had spoken in her life.

"Would it have made a difference?"

 _I hate that you can speak of this without stammering over the poisonous words and I hate that you don't care._

"It would have when I had to ask Carlist to arrest my own father," she shot back.

The gaze returned, steady, but wide-eyed. "Ah," she said quietly. "That explains a great deal about why you have come here."

"He wants to play the penitent," Leia sneered. "I want justice."

"As well you should," Mothma conceded. "In the meantime, we shall have to begin with some basic precautions..."


	4. Chapter 4

Author's note: Okay, so I've got a little while where I don't have to do any editing or writing on my book. I'm getting some writing done and reposting as well. If you're confused by some of this, I have an AU fanon known as the Rudur Chronicles that will be explained in greater detail throughout the story. You'll see threads of it here. Also, reviews help my morale. Please post them, even if you don't like the story all that much. I can take it.

oooooo

Anakin _awoke to find slender fingers running along the skin just above his eyes. Since there were no injuries to speak of there, this aroused his curiosity, but the moment that he though to identify his ministering angel, his heart did the work for him._

 _"Are you an angel?" he queried hoarsely, voice straining to inflect some kind of emotion into the first words they had spoken to each other in a decade._

 _He half expected her to recoil violently as if she had mistakenly brushed her hand against a hot surface, but her ministrations did not cease._

 _"Hardly, my Lord," Padme said stiffly. "If I were one, I'd be a cruel savior because I have no intention of letting you die."_

 _His brow furrowed and in that moment, he recognized why she had been probing that area with her fingertips. It was not a medical examination, but a tentatively familiar gesture of affection._

 _Had he forgotten her so forcefully that he couldn't remember the evenings when she wouldn't let him crawl into bed with her until she had smoothed the worry lines from his brow?_

"I didn't marry a grouch, so if the grouch wants to get any sleep tonight, he'll go away and let my husband come for a visit."

He'd laughed and marked the same furrow between her eyebrows. "What about this grouch?" he teased.

"Someone will have to be the sensible one when we're parents," she explained. "It might as well be the disgruntled politician instead of the doting father."  
 _  
"You haven't changed a bit."_

 _He hadn't heard her laugh in so long that the burst of bitter amusement that escaped from her throat was almost entirely alien to him._

 _"I've spent a decade hiding behind this profession," she admitted. "I've forgotten how to trust and relearned the basics with great difficulty. I've done this to avoid the possibility that you might someday recognize the woman you once loved in me and it has been for nothing."_

 _Part of him was still a young man who was dismayed that she had distrusted him so strongly, but the more sensible side of him found smug satisfaction in the fact that her efforts were as futile as they were fearful._

 _"Not for nothing," he insisted. "You're here, aren't you?"_

 _"Exactly."_

 _His mind immediately supplied the acute self-consciousness that he had experienced upon finding himself without the armor. He had not thought on the physical marring since then, but facing a woman who, though the furrows had deepened in her brow and her hair was beginning to go grey at the temples, was a perfect beauty, his subconscious was only too willing to condemn him._

 _Instead, when he probed her mind to confirm his suspicions, he was assaulted by thoughts of laughter that could not be contained in their small apartment and the quiet murmur of his voice in her ear as they held each other in the moonlight. He could almost feel the swell of their child beneath his mechanical hands, could hear the quiet celebration in the words "You're going to be a father, Anakin."_

 _"Do you remember?" she whispered._

 _Before he could respond, the same hands that could remember the shape of his baby girl remembered the feel of her cracked jaw, the power of the shove that had left her crumpled against the wall as he turned his back on her for the last time. Roared threats and hissed betrayals rung in his ears with as much force as though they were being spoken in the same room._

 _"Do you remember?" she repeated._

 _Both were equally powerful accusations._

 _"Yes," he admitted quietly._

 _"Then, you know why."_

 _"I know why you revile me," he shot back, "but I do not know why you insist on keeping me alive."_

 _Her smile was tight, her eyes dead. "I am not you, Lord Vader," she explained flatly. "I would keep Palpatine alive because I know why I chose the path of a healer."_

I seriously doubt that, but if it lets you sleep at night...

No, you might just do that because it provides more opportunity for torture than a quick death. I remember the logical diplomat, the compassionate Senator, but I also remember what you wished on those who crossed you too often.  
 _  
His eyes traveled along the stark outline of her collarbones to a golden chain from which hung a familiar pendant._

 _"If you were so concerned with hiding yourself, you should have forgotten a boy who made his angel a carving of a japor snippet."_

 _"Indeed," she agreed stiffly, but did not move to conceal the ornament._

 _She looked away for a long moment, as if to clear her head, but it must have been a more monumental task than she had anticipated because she remained in that position, back stiff and chin lowered, for a long time before turning back to him._

 _Her eyes were no longer dead, but he did not prefer the alternative._

 _"You are obviously on a respirator because of the respiratory distress that you suffered," she recited coldly. "We will be carefully monitoring your progress and transferring you to your previous life support once you are strong enough. Your blaster wounds are healing nicely and we have been able to avoid infections..."_

 _"Padme..."_

 _"Because of your injuries in the explosion," she continued casually, even as her cheeks paled under the influence of that name, "we have deemed it necessary for you to undergo rehabilitation. The Emperor has been informed of this and we will not proceed until his approval is given or we are instructed on your next destination for further treatment. Do you understand the treatment as I have explained it to you?"_

 _She regarded him openly, mouth pinched and eyes blazing, but not daring to express any of the thoughts that fueled that expression._

 _"Yes," he said reluctantly._

 _She pushed to her feet, turning her back on him with surprising ease._

Wait, sithit, _his mind screamed._ I have a few thousand questions for you. __

 _"What became of the child?"_

 _Finally, something that broke through her composure. He did not have to see her face to understand the reason why her shoulders heaved and her head lowered._

May the Force damn you as I do, _was the thought that his eager probing gleaned from her mind as he sought the answer in her vulnerability._

 _His mind recalled again the last he'd seen of her, when she lay in a quivering heap, arms wrapped protectively around the bulk of their unborn child as she howled in grief and pain._

 _And then, her memory took over and followed her through blood, sweat and tears to the moment when his child would be born..._

 _And then, nothing but an empty space in her heart._

 _"You intended to kill me," she hissed. "Did you think that you had spared his life as well?"_

 _Since there was still a part of Anakin in his mind, his mouth had the strange compulsion to form the words "I'm sorry," but Vader mocked both their futility and falsehood._

 _Before the two could reconcile their differences, she had gone, but the shadow of her reasons for hating him remained behind as tangibly as if she had been standing there for the rest of eternity._  
ooooo  
"Sir, can you hear me?"

It was the third time this person had asked the same question, but she didn't seem to be satisfied with the idea that he was wholly too exhausted to answer the question. Still, the person seemed to be genuinely concerned, so he forced his eyes open and willed his mouth to move.

"Where's my son?"

"Commander Skywalker is resting," the woman's voice assured him. "He suffered the same sort of damage that kept you here in the medcenter, but not at close range. He will suffer no...permanent damage."

 _"He is no good to me dead."_

 _"He will not be permanently damaged."_

"You treated him well?" he asked unnecessarily.

 _Of course they did. The Alliance is not as well-equipped as the Empire, but they haven't forgotten the meaning of 'compassion' or 'quality care.'_

"To the best of our ability," she answered. "It's the same courtesy we afford all of our patients, even you."

There was a wry tone in her voice, as if she found the irony of providing him with quality care priceless.

He had only heard that tone once before and it had come from Padme, so this yet unseen caretaker was one of his survivors.

"You know, then, who I am," he guessed.

Finally, she leaned over him, providing him with a clear view of a woman in her late twenties with thick hair so red that it might have been born of fire and solemn brown eyes. He did not recognize her at all until his eyes noted the scar that started near her right collarbone and wrapped around the right side of her slender neck.

And then, he remembered it too clearly. He remembered the night that reeked already of blood when he added the flames of vengeance to the mix. It had been one of the first missions he took on as Lord Vader and had ended in unnecessary disaster.

"Ruen Mea's daughter. Aitlen."

Her eyelids dropped immediately drooped and she turned her head so she could avoid meeting his gaze. Instead, she left the scar that he had given her in full sight.

"I'm surprised you even remembered the world," she said quietly, "much less our names."

"In the early days," he responded, "I could name each one."

Her jaw clenched, but she at least returned her gaze to him. "That's not much comfort," she admitted, "but I'll take it anyway."

He nodded, not sure how to broach the subject further. Instead, he sighed heavily. "What is the damage, Dr. Mea?"

 _Back to formalities, to the comfort zone._

She grimaced. "Burn damage, as is expected," she explained, "but we took care of the superficial wounds with bacta. You suffered a cardiac arrest because of the electrical charge, but we were able to resuscitate you, obviously. You will have residual weakness and the expected limited mobility until we can do further treatment..."

She quirked an unexpected smile. "You probably didn't want a recitation," she said almost apologetically.

 _I gave you that scar when I tried to shoot past you to kill your mother, then sent you into the night to die. Why in the name of the Force are you not finding ways to kill me?_

 _She's another Luke. It's surprising to feel relieved by that._

"Who else knows?"

"Other than the men who arrested you, the Chief of State, I am the only one who knew your name by experience. If anyone else knows that the Anakin Skywalker on the register is an enemy, they haven't said so. It's not our secret to tell until we know what is to be done, as it is."

"Thank you," he responded genuinely.

ooooo

Leia was there the next time he woke up, barefoot and thoroughly engrossed in the contents of her datapad.

"A love letter from Captain Solo?"

"Not this morning," she retorted quietly. "He's trying to sweet-talk his way out of reassignment and Rieekan's threatening to leave him here only on the condition that we make him a father-in-law."

It was probably a good sign that he felt a stab of guilt at the recognition that she would never give Lord Vader that title in any sense beyond the biological, but it almost drew a smile out of him.

"I'm not sure whose side to take," he confessed in kind.

"Yes," she sighed, "but that's up to the both of us not Rieekan and the Senate Matchmaking Oversight Committee."

That _did_ inspire a smile.

 _"I was not romanced to watch myself suffer and die while you discuss my boyfriend in a committee!"_

"Your mother's daughter," he observed wryly.

"Hopefully, I don't have her taste in men," she bit out, setting down her datapad. "I'm working on the preliminary charges list."

This hostility, at least, was familiar territory, but he had no desire to approach it in a familiar manner.

"Preliminary," he repeated carefully.

"Yes," she confirmed. "We have not disclosed your identity to anyone and will not until we have arranged the guard force. It is both imprudent and dangerous to let something like this out."

"I agree," he conceded. "So, the charges are simply the ones that your High Command is willing to press personally?"

"They are the ones that will define the nature of the trial," she explained. "If we are able to draw up charges on a purely military basis, you will be tried by a court martial. Since most of your crimes included civilians, however, it is my duty to do the research on the major crimes that could be used for the heading 'crimes against civilization.'"

It was a criminal charge that had been last filed against Kar Vastor and Depa Billaba when Anakin was still a brash young officer in the Army of the Republic and thoughts of fatherhood were merely wishful thinking. Anakin had been on Alderaan when the word came through from Padme and he had remembered staring at the details of the charges with something akin to all-consuming horror. He had been wholly unable to fathom what kind of person, with the Force at their side and guiding them, would have the blindness to even begin those sorts of actions.

He had been blinded enough to act in a way that made Haruun Kal pale by comparison.

 _"Then you are lost!"_

She hefted the datapad. "I would thank you for making my job so easy," she commented dryly, "but I'd rather not be able to find anything of the sort."

"Where does Alderaan fall?"

This was probably her strongest point of condemnation against anyone who had served in the Empire, but she was unable to look at him while reporting on it.

"That was Tarkin's crime," she said, even though her voice choked around the words. "I will not see you prosecuted for that particular crime of omission."

 _Except in your mind. I remember that much from Bespin._

He could remember that, while he tortured her mind on Cloud City, she had fought back in a manner. She had recognized too many moments of weakness in the time she had spent on the Death Star and to give herself power when she had lost everything else, she had shoved these memories back into his mind.

She had been especially attentive to the memory of him beating her for vague impressions of a woman and a necklace that her father had given her. He had thought it all a taunt, instead of a sign that she was Padme's child.

His child.

The one that he could call his by birth, but not by right.

He had thought her headstrong, not Force-strong at the time.

He did not remind her of this, however, had the paradoxical urge to avoid provoking her.

"Thank you," he said instead.

ooooo

Four years ago, she had never heard of Endor.

She had never had her spirit broken or her mind violated. She had never known murderous intent or what it meant to lose the will to live. She considered few her enemies and many her friends because, while she distrusted the powerful, she was a compassionate type.

Four years ago today, that had all changed.

Four years ago today, she had found herself stumbling in her first steps towards an observation gallery because the effects of interrogation had left her weaker than she had ever thought possible. She had held her head high, even though the starvation of the "softening up" period had left her jaw more clearly pronounced and her neck looking thin rather than slender. She had clasped her hands in front of her out of diplomatic habit rather than the need to ease the pressure on her chafed wrists or hide the sweat stains beneath her arms.

She had been completely out of control in that situation, so she had simply taken control of every aspect of her personal bearing.

And then, she had found out just how futile that gesture was as well.

Vader, the one who had been so eager to seen her crumpled against the wall or cringing under his ministrations, the one who had knocked her across the cell with the force of his blows, had been the one to keep her immobile during the operation. She had struggled at first, had argued and pleaded until her voice began to crack with the effort of keeping calm, but in a moment, she was blinded.

And then the newly-made Orphan Organa had retched, unable to speak and unable to trigger any other response.

She remembered little of the ensuing moments. She could not pinpoint the route they took to return to her cell or how many stormtroopers had been in her escort. She could not tell how much time passed between the moment they left her standing alone in her cell and when they returned to deliver her meal.

She only remembered the fact that she had been unable to respond. While she was alone, her only focus was maintaining her composure. She had not had to work that hard at restraining her emotions since she was a small girl and she found herself reverting to the same methods as before.

Only this time, the clenched fists left bloody imprints of fingernails in her palms and when she unclenched the shoulders that were nearly raised to her earlobes, the trembling that had been induced in that gesture would not stop.

The tears, however, were still something she could control. By the time her escort returned with food that might as well have been topsoil for all the taste she gleaned from it, her eyes were bright with tears that were locked behind the impenetrable barrier of royal bearing.

She made it through two mouthfuls, choking on each one as her gag reflex kicked in, reminding her that she had just murdered her entire world with her obstinance. On the third forkful, however, her hand trembled so violently that she could not even make it halfway to her mouth and it finally fell, forgotten, from nerveless fingers.

And with that, her mind forgot that she was supposed to be the perfect Princess and she had known the meaning of words like "all-consuming" and "violent grief."

More than anything, it had been the fact that she had lost her father in the moment that she turned away that broke her.

She had lost both of the mothers that she had known, had grieved inadequately for them both out of juvenile ignorance or diplomatic necessity. The father that had sired her was never spoken of, except to mention that they had not known him before his death.

The loss of the man who she had called Father was unfathomable. She grieved inadequately, but not from lack of trying. She recognized that her last goodnight kiss had been tinged with an inappropriate resentment because she had just lost her mother and he was still willing to make her a sacrifice to the Empire. She remembered the frustration that all of her efforts until death would be deemed insufficient by a man who gave orders from a desk. He may have been a founder of the Rebellion, but she had, in her puerile frustration, forgotten that there were other kinds of valor than the ability to charge into the fray of battle.

She had hated herself for even thinking of that frustration and for allowing it to fester while she left for Toprawa.

Each year, the anniversary took on a different dynamic. The first passed unnoticed because, in her duty to the Rebellion, she had allowed herself to be seriously wounded and was suspended in bacta while her fellow Alderaanian survivors remembered that she had stolen their world from them one year ago.

The following year, she had expected to face the grief alone, but Han had come to the well-meaning if slightly exasperating rescue. Luke had been on a mission with Rogue Squadron, so Han had stayed on their behalf, patiently and compassionately staying through the four hours that it took her to sob through the half hour of requiem prayers.

On the third anniversary, she had been undercover on Ord Mantell and it was too dangerous to do a proper memorial, but Han had taken over the watch for the night and allowed her to remain in her room for a quiet recitation of the prayers. She had managed to do them without collapsing again, but when they were over and her heart was as hollow as before, she had curled in on herself, spending the rest of the sleepless night in anguished contemplation.

Each year brought its own difficulties, but she had never expected that the fourth anniversary would find her wishing that the father she had been forced to ignore were dead.

She performed the private ceremony in her quarters, in the sitting room that had a deck-to-ceiling viewport so that she could perform the prayers with her gaze on the flare of light that was still Alderaan's star. She recited them in a trembling voice, the prayers about rest in the assurance of justice fulfilled more a plea for forgiveness than an expression of hope.

She should have asked Han or Luke to accompany her, but she had been uncertain of her ability to endure the questions that would have followed. Han would have spent the time asking if she was sure she was all right. Luke would have simply philosophized her guilt over her father's death into the ground.

It was hard enough to face this ritual with the knowledge that she was dishonoring her Father with her hatred of her father. 


End file.
